


We're All That They've Got

by maplemood



Series: I'm Not Your Hero [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Wolverine (Movies), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Lisa Survives, Alternate Universe - Logan Survives, Father Figures, Father-Daughter Relationship, Female Friendship, Fluff & Angst, Found Family, Gen, Kid Fic, and some don't happen at all, in which some canon things happen much earlier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-12 10:46:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10489122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maplemood/pseuds/maplemood
Summary: He’d told Lisa he was helping out a man and a little girl on the run from bad people, so she wasn’t surprised. Maybe she wished he’d told her a few more things, like how close these bad people were, or that the little girl couldn’t (wouldn’t) speak English. Or that she could pop a knife out of her knuckle as easily as Lisa cracked hers.





	1. Chapter 1

Lisa waits until seven, but by five she knows that Frank’s not making it home tonight. She didn’t expect him to. And she tells herself that because she never expected it, it’s okay; you can’t be disappointed, or mad, or, God forbid, sad over something you knew was never going to happen in the first place. Anyway, she’s getting too old for birthday parties.

When the microwave clock flashes 6:00 she turns to Laura, who’s been waiting with her this whole time. “That’s it. I’m officially thirteen.”

Laura doesn’t answer, or even nod, but that’s Laura for you. Lisa opens the cupboard under the crummy sink, looking for a clean pot—birthday party or not, she makes a mean mac and cheese, and it’s not waiting until tomorrow.

“Chips on top or not?” she asks, but Laura’s left the room. Lisa shivers. She’s never been around another kid as silent as Laura. Not Frank Jr. (but don’t think about him, and don’t think about Mom either, you don’t want to go there, not now) and not Lisa herself, even though she was always the quiet one, at least according to her dad.

Frank.

Lisa fills up the pot. She puts it on the heat, not wondering about where Frank is, if he’ll come back tomorrow, or the day after that, if he’ll ever come back. When she turns around to get the cheese packets Laura’s back at the table, a pink-wrapped present sitting in front of her.

She pushes it toward Lisa. “ _Abrelo_.”

“Open it?” Lisa’s never taken Spanish.

“ _Si_.”

The package itself is small, the size of the velvet-lined jewelry box where Mom keeps—kept—her pearls. It’s topped with an absolutely gigantic purple bow. Lisa unties it carefully. It’s trickier to get the paper off in one piece; she takes her time with that.

That used to drive Frank crazy. Christmases Lisa would get a whole boatload of presents, and she’d unwrap each one just like that. The paper was just as pretty as the presents; she wanted to keep all of it. Finally Mom and Frank Jr. would go to the kitchen to start making breakfast. Only Frank would stay with her.

 _Come on_ , he’d say. _It’s not made out of gold._ Sometimes he’d try to bribe her into going faster. _Would you do it for fifty bucks? How ‘bout a hundred?_ When she refused he’d shake his head and huff out a laugh that was half impressed, half pissed. _I hate to break it to you, honey, but you ain’t no businesswoman,_ he’d say, like he’d seriously been about to fork over a hundred dollars.

Underneath the wrapping is a fuzzy black box—a jewelry box, definitely. Lisa sneaks a peek up at Laura, but her face isn’t giving away anything. It almost never does.

It’s a heart-shaped locket, sterling silver. Lisa squints to read the words engraved on it, so fine you’d swear they’d been written with a reed. _Lisa & Laura_. She flicks the clasp open. _Partners in Crime._

Lisa takes a deep breath. Then she walks around the table and hugs Laura, hard.

“It’s perfect,” she says, meaning it with all her heart. “Best gift I’ve ever gotten.”

Laura shrugs out of her grasp. “ _De_ _nada_.”

+

Laura doesn’t want chips on top of the mac and cheese but Lisa does, so she crumbles half the bag and leaves the rest for Laura to eat on the side. They’re setting the table with three of the four dinner plates in the apartment when someone bangs on the door.

Lisa jumps, almost dropping the casserole dish. She can’t help it; remembering the noise of the guns. Can’t help remembering Mom on top of her, long past screaming, now just gurgling and dripping.

Now Laura pries the dish out of her hands, sets in the center of the table so delicately you’d think it was fine china, not an awful puke-green thing that Lisa forced Frank to buy from a thrift store. That done, Laura stomps over to the door, cocks her ear, then unlocks each of the three deadbolts, slowly, before swinging open the door. Just as slowly.

“ _Cabrόn_!” she snaps.

“Forgot my goddamn keys,” Logan snarls back. He unhooks Baxter from his leash, and the pit bull barrels into Laura, whining and slobbering like it’s the last time he’ll ever see her.

Frank Jr. kept breathing after Mom did. Not much longer, but Lisa listened to her brother dying three feet away from her, too scared to crawl toward him, to even take his hand. She was supposed to protect him. That was all her dad ever asked of her. Her brother still ended up dying alone.

Maybe Baxter has the right idea.

Logan ducks into the kitchen. “Tell you what, Blondie—you can walk him next time.”

Lisa finds their only serving spoon smeared with half-dried baked beans in the sink. She scrubs it under the tap, then slaps it down by the mac and cheese. “Bite me.”

Logan grumbles but gets three drinking glasses down from the cupboard, filling them at the tap. He doesn’t ask if she’s heard from Frank. He’s smarter than that.

After Laura dumps a cup of food into Baxter’s dog bowl (“One cup, got it? Otherwise he’ll get fat.”) they sit down to eat. It’s not the best batch Lisa’s ever made. She mixed in too much powdered cheese, so the sauce is gritty. Laura gulps down half the casserole dish anyway.

“Hey. Hey!” Logan grabs the serving spoon out of her hand. “You’ve had enough.”

Her mouth still full, Laura lets loose a stream of Spanish.

“No _habla_.”

Laura swallows. “Liar.”

“She can have the rest,” Lisa butts in. “I’m not hungry.”

“She’s not, either,” growls Logan, and Laura growls back at him.  

Lisa sighs. She watches Logan and Laura snarl at each other across the dented table and knows what her mom would say if she could see this. _A zoo_ , Maria would say. _This is a complete zoo_. And she’d be right.

+

She didn’t see Frank for a long time after the shooting. Exactly six months. They took her out of the hospital and placed her with a family on Staten Island, a family with a pool in their backyard and a spare bedroom painted blue. She went to school, where two kids got suspended for spray painting the Punisher’s logo on the side of the building. Lisa saw it before they could paint it over. She didn’t feel anything—anything at all, it was like she’d been emptied, scooped hollow. And maybe that was good; maybe it meant she was on her way to forgetting.

Except she didn’t. She couldn’t, when she always knew he’d come back for her. He did, in the middle of the night, when all she had time to grab was her backpack and a few changes of clothes. No books, no starred report cards, not her new charm bracelet or dinosaur-shaped keychain. Frank made her leave everything except for a note.

She’s still mad at him for that. She understands, but that doesn’t make it okay. Lisa sometimes cries at night, and half the time it’s for Stan and Carla back in Staten Island, not Mom and Frank Jr. Not for Frank.

They got into their first huge fight two weeks after he took her. Lisa can’t remember how it started, but she sure remembers how it ended.   She remembers that by then they’d been screaming at each other for so long that her throat rasped like sandpaper. She was shaking, maybe because she was so mad, maybe because they’d never really fought before, not as loud and long and ugly as this.

“Where’s my dad?” She said that. “’Cause whoever _you_ are, you’re not him!”

Something behind his eyes, something she hadn’t realized was still there, switched off. “He died a while back,” Frank said, and Lisa will never forget that, not because of the words, but because it was like staring emptiness in the face. There was just nothing _left_ , nothing of the dad who read her story books and rigged them a kite out of a trash bag and some electrical tape, who danced their mom across the family room while Lisa and Frank Jr. watched from the couch, laughing their heads off. None of that was coming back.

It still hasn’t. Lisa knows why, she knows what he’s been through, but she was there, she’s felt everything he’s felt, and there’s still some part of her from before that day—even if it’s a small part—that’s still alive. She held it even closer after that fight, after she realized how things were, and she’s not exactly mad at Frank, because people don’t deal with things the same way, but if she could do it, couldn’t he at least try?

Back then they were holed up in a condemned apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. Two days after the fight Frank brought Logan and Laura home with him.

He’d told Lisa he was helping out a man and a little girl on the run from bad people, so she wasn’t surprised. Maybe she wished he’d told her a few more things, like how close these bad people were, or that the little girl couldn’t (wouldn’t) speak English. Or that she could pop a knife out of her knuckle as easily as Lisa cracked hers. 

 _Mutants._ She heard about them on the news—they were always on the news, especially after Westchester, but that happened three years ago, before everything, before Lisa knew to listen. Now she grabbed the first aid kit from beside her mattress and headed for the unconscious man, who Frank had dumped on his mattress.  She could see bullet holes in his shirt, blood soaking through his jacket. Too much blood.

Lisa rounded on Frank. “He’s going to die.” She hadn’t thrown more than two words his way since the fight. Now she sounded more pissed than scared and didn’t care.

The girl--she was tiny, half Frank Jr.’s size; her pants were held up by a man’s belt with extra holes pricked in it—stopped sucking a bloody slit on her knuckle long enough to snap something. Her voice was as tiny as she was, shrill and sharp like broken glass.

The man’s blood was soaking through the mattress, pooling on the sticky floor. Lisa flicked open the latch on the first aid box, her hands shaking and making a mess of all the carefully sorted wipes and bandages inside. The girl snapped again.

“She says ‘Wait’.” Frank had taken Spanish in high school.

“He’s bleeding out,” Lisa answered without really hearing him, balling up a pad of gauze and pressing it to the man’s side, under his jacket, because people will die around her, that’s just the way it is now, but she’ll die herself before she curls up in a ball and leaves them to do it alone.

“You’re not helping him.” Frank’s voice was exhausted, rough from shouting and too many cigarettes. He reached down to sift through the kit with his thick fingers, making Lisa’s mess even worse. “He’s a mutant.”

“Right,” She reached for another pad; the mattress was ruined. “I’m not fucking _stupid_.”

 “You’re not listening,” he growled. He’d lost the right to tell her what to say and they both knew it. Frank pushed Lisa’s hands away and lifted the edge of the man’s shirt.

The gash was as thick as Lisa’s arm, turning his side red and gushing and meaty. She was about to look away when the gushing stopped.

Just like that.

Lisa watched as his skin knit back together with a soft, slippery-sticky squelch, droplets blood oozing out of the shrinking slit before hardening to scabs. She even touched it. She _felt_ the gash join, smooth, become whole again.

“It’s like a miracle.” Mom had herded them all to church twice a year—on Christmas and Easter. Both days you could count on the preacher to talk a big game about miracles. Lisa was pretty sure this would qualify.

Frank wasn’t. “Leave him be and see if that little girl wants something to eat.”

Lisa touched the man’s side one last time—still whole—and got to her feet. Her hands and the knees of her jeans were covered in his blood. “Where did she go?”

“Down the hall.” Frank ripped open a suture pack with his teeth. “You yell if her claws come out.”

+

The bathroom door was closed. Lisa knocked, not expecting an answer.

“Hey, um—” She darted back to the living room. “What’s her name?”

Busy threading a needle, Frank didn’t look up. “Laura.”

Okay. Lisa knocked again, louder this time. “Hey, Laura? Do you need any help?”

Still no answer. Lisa wondered if she should just leave a sandwich by the door. Then the knob twisted, and the door swung open a crack.

Lisa nudged it with her foot. “Can I come in?”

Silence. She heard water dripping—and that same sharp, broken-glass voice.

“ _Vale_.”

Inside Lisa could practically feel new mold sprouting on the cracked, mustardy wallpaper. Laura stood in the shower, already stripped down to her underpants, jimmying the faucet like she had a grudge against it.

“Oh yeah.” By some fluke they still got water, but not a whole lot of it. Lisa reached over Laura’s shoulder; the younger girl whipped her head around and glared at her. A mist of blood scattered like faint freckles across her cheeks.

“Hey,” Lisa tried to keep her voice steady, like Mom whenever she or Frank Jr. used to get ornery. “I’m just trying to help. You’ve gotta kind of yank it—” nothing but a rusty dribble “—or whack it.” Lisa twisted the faucet with her left hand and smacked it with her right. She stepped back. “You try.”

Laura sniffed (actually sniffed, as if she were picking up Lisa’s scent) suspiciously. But she stepped up and twisted and whacked with all her might, until the showerhead grumbled, spurted, and finally pissed out a stream of yellowish, lukewarm water.

Laura stepped under the flow without as much as a _gracias_ , bending her head to let it run through her hair. Streams of cloudy red water circled down the drain, but when the blood washed away Lisa didn’t spot any cuts.  

She remembered Frank Jr. choking on the grass, then Mom’s story about dating a mutant boy for a week in middle school before his parents packed him off to Westchester. Different dad, different genetics. Would anything have changed then?

“Um, Laura?”

The girl’s head cocked in her direction. With her hair still slung dripping over her face, it was more than a little creepy, like that one movie about the drowned girl in the well that Lisa had insisted on watching when she was eight.

“Is the man outside your dad?”

Laura tensed. “ _Si_.”

“What’s his name?”

“Logan.”

Logan. She hadn’t even heard his voice yet, but Lisa bet the name fitted him just right, the same way “Laura” fitted Laura. Tight as a skin.

She scooped up the clothes puddled on the floor. Jeans, belt, and pony T-shirt, all splotched red. She stoppered the sink, and, after working the same magic on that faucet, filled it with cold water. The shirt and jeans went in. Hopefully the stains would soak out.

“Lisa.”

It came out short and sharp, almost a command. Lisa actually jumped.

“Did Frank tell you my name?”

“ _Si_.” Laura raked hair back from her face and eyed her from the toes up. “He said you were—” she stopped, not like she couldn’t find the right word; Lisa guessed you could speak English just fine when she wanted to. It was more like Laura was trying to translate for _her_. “Nice.” She finally said. “He said you were very nice.”

She hadn’t been lately. Least of all to him. Lisa dunked her hands in the sink, feeling Logan’s blood, crusted and itchy, under her nails.

“He said you could get blood out of anything.”

Something Mom used to say popped back into Lisa’s mind—she’d always be half-laughing, half spitting mad when she said it. _Geez, Frank. You sure know how to charm a woman._

And he’d just stare back at her with the biggest, most shit-eating grin Lisa had ever seen.

“Sure I can,” said Lisa. “All you need is cold water.” Then, maybe because she’d remembered Mom, or was too tired to prove Frank wrong, or—or because Laura was there, and she knew, somehow, that Laura needed her, even though she’d never say so, and Lisa would never ask her to—she said, “You want me to shampoo your hair?”

Maybe the same thoughts were running through Laura’s head. Maybe not. She stared at Lisa (not quite a glare, but close) for a full minute. Then shrugged.

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Lisa repeated. She grabbed the bottle from the side of the shower and squirted a dollop into her hand. Better make it two dollops. “Here, bend your head back so it won’t get in your eyes. My mom taught me how to do this….”

Don’t think about Mom. Don’t think about Frank Jr. Don’t think about Logan, still out cold on Frank’s mattress. Don’t think about the people after them, the ones who tried carving Logan and Laura up. Don’t think about Frank, stitching his own cuts alone.

 _It’s going to be okay_ , thought Lisa. _Everything’s going to be okay_. For the first time in a year, she believed herself.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaand it looks like this'll be a three parter, guys. 
> 
> A note on this AU: My timeline for this is _incredibly_ hazy, but basically it takes place six months or so after season 2 of _Daredevil_. Logan and Laura's story starts off much earlier than it does in canon, so mutants are nowhere near extinction. The Westchester Incident did happen, though, and Logan's healing factor is starting to wear off, though he's not as far gone as he is in the movie.

The argument over mac and cheese turns into a battle, a battle Laura wins because Laura always does. By the time it’s over they’re new dents in the table and Lisa’s ready to ring both their necks.

 _Get along!_ She wants to yell, pushing them together like puzzle pieces. _Just_ behave, _goddammit_!

At least Logan offers to do the dishes. Except that offer isn’t the right word; he pushes Lisa out of the way, growling something she doesn’t catch and doesn’t try to. He’s surprisingly gentle when he handles plates and cups, soaping and rinsing and setting them down carefully, so nothing shatters in the sink. He isn’t ever gentle with Lisa. Never with Laura.

That’s just how he is. She’d be able to tell that he and Laura are related even if they didn’t have the same eyes, the same claws, the same ways of glaring and snarling. They can’t be gentle with each other, any more than they can behave. Mom would say it’s because of how they were raised, especially Laura— _poor little test tube baby_. Lisa thinks it’s in the blood.

While Logan washes and Lisa dries, Laura drags out the broom—another thrift store deal—and sweeps the kitchen floor. She takes her time; Lisa knows how to do more things, but Laura’s a better worker. More thorough. _Cadet_ , Frank sometimes calls her, when she gets something especially spotless, and when he does Laura almost smiles.

It doesn’t make Lisa jealous. Well, not usually.

Anyway, Laura isn’t actually very cadet-like. Especially now when, as she’s sweeping, she bombards Logan with a hail of what sound like demands. Lisa remembers thinking about how silent Laura is earlier and realizes she’s made a terrible mistake.

She’s not screaming, she’s just asking. Loudly.

Logan shakes out a glass, hands it to Lisa. “No.”

Laura snorts, rattles off something else. Lisa catches her name in there.

“No,” she snaps, whipping around. “No way. You’re not dragging me into this.”

Laura ignores her. Lisa pokes Logan’s side. “Don’t you try, either.”

You’d think they’d turn to Frank, him being twenty-one years older than her and, you know, the Punisher besides, but no. Lisa’s always the middle man.

“Yeah? How about you don’t stick your nose in?” Logan won’t admit that she’s their middle man. Neither will Laura, actually. They’re both too stubborn to admit anything.

 _Remind you of anyone?_ she can hear Mom asking, from years back when Lisa was always mad at someone—Frank Jr. for dumping her dinosaurs into his toy box, Frank Sr. for finally coming home and lying in bed like a lump, too tired to move when she’d spent the last four months dreaming of a dad she could swim and bike and wrestle with.

_They never listen!_

_Remind you of anyone?_

No. Frank isn’t like Logan and Lisa will never be like Laura, no matter how much she wants it, no matter how hard she tries. Laura lashes out, clawing and snarling. She hurts Logan (they hurt each other). But she understands him, gets him in exactly the way Frank’s war buddies always got him. They’ve been through something horrible together; it turned them hard but it sure didn’t turn them into strangers. What Logan feels, Laura feels too. Half the time they don’t understand each other, but they speak the same language.

Logan hands Lisa another glass to dry. He’s used the “no _habla_ ” excuse one too many times, so Laura switches to English.

“It’s her birthday,” she says.

Lisa went through something horrible. Frank did, too. They were close enough to touch, but they didn’t go through it together.

She bangs down the glass. “Yeah, it’s my birthday. You know what I want?”

“To go out,” says Laura. “To have _fun_.” She glares at Logan.

“Oh yeah? I don’t remember you ever saying you had mind-reading powers.”

Logan snorts. Laura’s glare turns on her, full-force, but Lisa doesn’t care. It’s almost eight and Frank, who hasn’t been home in two days, could be dead in a dumpster for all she knows. He acts like he can take on anyone or anything, but he’s not young anymore. His knees creak and his joints ache. Even his back is starting to get screwed up.

He won’t stop. He’ll keep killing himself slowly.

“I want you all to shut up,” says Lisa. “Can’t you just shut up?” She reaches for something to dry but Logan has nothing to hand to her. He’s stopped scrubbing.

“You need to go out,” says Laura, soft and slow, like she’s barely keeping herself from ripping Lisa’s head off.

“Leave me alone.”

Frank would never end it quick, with one clean shot. He’d never admit to Lisa that be wants to be with Maria and Frank Jr., not her. But she knows.

“You need help,” says Laura.

“I don’t need _your_ help!”

She’s always known.

Baxter pads into the kitchen, whining. Lisa grabs the still-sloppy casserole dish from the counter and sets it on the floor. “Hey, boy,” she says. Her voice shakes. “You want to finish this up?”

Baxter’s used to fighting. Lisa and Frank, Logan and Laura—he takes them screaming at each other, no problem. Water off a duck’s back. But if Lisa so much as looks cross-eyed at Laura? All of a sudden he’s a complete puddling mess, like one of those dogs that needs to wear a security vest every Fourth of July. Right now he eyes both of them, whimpering suspiciously before lowering his head to lap up the cheese sauce.

“Good boy,” Lisa whispers. She thumps his sides the way Frank does. All the while she feels Laura’s eyes boring twin holes through the front of her skull.

“Quit looking at me like that!”

Baxter jerks his head up and barks. Logan bangs a hand on the counter, loud enough that Lisa jumps. Loud enough that even Laura jumps.

“I’ve had enough of this,” he says. “Kid—” Lisa’s never heard him call Laura by her name—“get your jacket.”

For possibly the first time ever Laura rushes to obey him, but not before flashing Lisa a smile that’s equal parts angelic and pure, cold steel.

“You too, Blondie.”

She clenches her jaw. “I’m not going.”

“I’m not asking.”

Lisa gives him a long look.

Logan’s jaw clenches, too. “You don’t want to test me.”

And all at once she realizes that he’s right. Lisa sags. She just doesn’t have the energy. Frank and Laura both drained it right out of her. 

Fine. Whatever.

“ _Si, senor_ ,” Lisa snaps. Her voice is colder and meaner than it’s been all night, worse than any tone she’d ever use with Laura. “I need my sweater.”

She stomps into their bedroom just as Laura’s coming out, decked out in her very best. Jean jacket, pony T-shirt (Those bloodstains did come out. It took baking soda and meat tenderizer and another hour of soaking, but when Lisa says she’ll do something, she does it.), and flowered pink sunglasses. As she passes Lisa grabs those off her nose.

“You don’t need sunglasses at night.”

Laura snatches them back. “I want them,” she says simply, but it’s as dangerous as a snarl.

So she’ll look like a psycho. Who cares? Lisa grabs the sweater from the pile of dirty laundry by her mattress and yanks it over her head, seething.

When she gets out they’re both waiting by the door. Logan has Baxter back on his leash.

Now he frowns out her. (Logan, not the dog.) “Put a hat on. That dye’s starting to fade out.”

It’s not until they’re out on the street that Lisa remembers her birthday present. She wishes she’d put it on, even though she kind of hates everyone right now, including herself. The locket’s cute. And it would have meant the world to Laura.

+

She’s a natural blond, like Mom. Once Frank stole her back from Stan and Carla Lisa’s picture started showing up in newspapers, and, worse, online. The hair had to go.

First, Frank cut it short. Lisa asked for an A-line bob, knowing she’d be lucky to escape without a buzz cut.

(“What the hell’s an A-line?”

“You know! It’s kind of tapered at the front.”

“Huh. You got your heart set on it?”

“Maybe.”

“Too bad. Keep your chin up.”)

He did try. It came out so choppy and awful that they both agreed it’d look better at all one length. Frank’s good with clippers, not scissors.

He picked up a packet of brunette hair dye from the drugstore without telling her. Lisa figured he knew she’d ask for something wild, like pink or purple, just to piss him off. In the bathroom she splattered the sink and the toilet and even her face with the stuff, and ended up with a briar patch the color of dog shit sprouting out of her head. 

It seems like she needs to touch that mess up every other day. It grows out fast, and Frank bought one of those fade out dyes; it lightens up with every wash. She was working on it over the kitchen sink the day after Frank dragged Logan and Laura back home with him.

“What’s up?” Lisa asked through the spare hair clip clenched between her teeth. Laura was perched on the counter, watching her with that unblinking, sort of predatory stare that made the back of Lisa’s neck prickle. “You’ve never seen hair dye before?”

Laura shook her head.

“You didn’t miss anything.” Lisa spat the clip into her palm, used it to pin her bangs back. “It makes my hair look like crap. Literal crap.”

Five seconds later she felt a tug on her hair.

Laura lifted up a damp strand and held it against her own braid (fishtail; Lisa was good at braids). She twisted them together, fascinated for a split second before shrugging and pulling away.

“ _Gemelas_.”

Lisa held the box against Laura’s head to double check. The shade matched almost exactly.

“Okay,” she said. “Maybe not literal crap.”

+

She feels naked. The hat and the dye and the sweater don’t help. If there’s one thing Lisa’s learned from Frank it’s that anyone can be watching at any time. People who think they can help you, people who want to hurt you. She might as well paint a bull’s eye on her back.

If Laura feels like that same bull’s eye is splattered across her back (and she does, Lisa _knows_ ), she doesn’t show it. She heads for the curb, throwing out her arm before Logan can say no or Lisa can ask where they’re going.

“What’re we going to do with Baxter?” Lisa reaches down, patting the tiny bald spot between his ears.

Logan looks at the dog, then at the dingy yellow cab already pulling up. He shrugs, grunts, “What the hell. Just tell him she’s blind.”

Laura pushes her sunglasses up, flashing the cab driver a grin that’s all teeth. No one in their right mind would mistake her for a blind person, any more than they’d mistake Baxter for a guard dog. That grin does all the convincing.

“Where to?” the driver asks, trying to keep an eye on Laura and an eye on Logan and an eye on the road, all at once (not to mention Baxter, who’s sprawled across both Lisa and Laura’s laps in the backseat).

Logan catches Lisa’s eyes in the mirror. “Where to, Blondie?”

She answers quick and sharp, without thinking. “East 65th Street. By the carousel.”

“You sure?” The driver’s asking Logan, not her. “It’ll be closed by now.”

It closes at six. She remembers. The always made it in time for the last ride.

 _Best for last_ , Frank would say.

 _The very best_ , she’d answer, even when she got older and it got goofy.

He’d stand between the two horses, one hand on Lisa’s back, the other on Frank Jr.’s. The organ music swelled until Lisa couldn’t hear herself. And then they’d _fly_. 

“I don’t care,” she says now. “Hurry up.”

The whole ride over, she watches Laura. She can’t help it. Laura’s like those calves Lisa read about online once, the ones stuffed into tiny stalls, in the dark, to keep their meat tender. But now she’s out, in this city that’s nothing but light and noise, like one huge carousel, and she’s just about bursting with the wonder of it. Watching her watch the cars and crummy apartment buildings zigzag by makes Lisa happy. It also makes her want to cry.

Crying over Laura is better than crying over Mom and Frank Jr. Much better than crying over Frank.

Laura’s not past saving.

They get out on 65th. Lisa’s got the end of Baxter’s leash; he yanks her to the nearest signpost while Logan pays the driver.

Laura follows them over, pushing her sunglasses up her nose again. Probably trying to hide her staring; Lisa bets her eyes are big as saucers. As far as she knows, Laura’s never been to Central Park before.

“The horses are all hand-carved,” Lisa tells her. Laura loves horses more than any other animal, maybe even more than Baxter, who’s just finished unloading his business under the post. She tugs his leash hopelessly. “Did you bring a bag?”

“No.”

“Have you ever seen a carousel?”

“No.”

“It’s like, um…” Logan’s still wrangling with the driver over whether Baxter counts as a passenger or not. Lisa prays to God that they don’t get in an actual fight. “…a merry-go-round? Have you seen one of those?” She spins a finger. “A really big merry-go-round.”

Laura’s face clears. “ _Tiovivo_?”

The cab door slams.

“Yeah. The biggest _tiovivo_ you’ve ever seen. When the horses jump, it’s like you’re flying.” She shouldn’t be getting her hopes up. It’s closed. Shuttered. Black as one of those calf pens.

Logan stalks up behind her and takes the leash from Lisa’s hand. “You girls just going to stare at it or what?”

“I don’t know,” says Lisa. Her back prickles; she feels like the whole city is watching her, fingers on triggers, a thousand guns ready to go off at any minute. She needs to go home—except it’s not home, not that crappy cramped apartment full of roaches and dirty clothes and the funk of men who’ve skipped one too many showers—but she needs to be there, when Frank gets back, if he gets back-if-if-if—

Where the hell is he? He needs to come back; it’s the only thing she asks of him anymore.   

“We need to get back,” she says, her voice starting to shake again, her hands too. Laura takes one of them and it helps, but not much. “Frank’s going to have a concussion, or broken ribs, or—”

They’re sharing looks behind her back. Those half-scowling stares unreadable to anyone else. Lisa doesn’t care.

“—he’s not even coming back, I don’t know anymore, maybe he’s dead, I don’t know.”

Logan’s hand drops to her shoulder. “Hey. Kid.”

“I don’t want to be here,” she says, shrugging it off. It’s huge and hard and anything but comforting. “You said I had to pick a place. I don’t want—”

She never wanted any of this to happen. Not the shootings. Not Frank. Not Logan.

Not even Laura.

Her nose is running. Lisa smears the snot away with the back of her hand. “Why did I pick _here_?” she snaps. She doesn’t wait for an answer. “I’m such an idiot.”

The crap that’s been building up all day—Logan and Laura and Mom and Frank Jr. and Frank, where the hell is Frank—swirls in her stomach and settles like cement; the heat of it almost chokes her. She remembers him here. She remembers the very last ride of the day, the very best, and she remembers his hand on her back—

“ _Tiovivo_ ,” Laura says.

She’s talking to Logan, but it’s enough to distract Lisa, to stop her from completely losing it in the middle of Central Park. Laura points to the carousel.

“It’s closed right now,” Logan says. “Nothing I can do. _Nada_.”

“Liar,” Laura snarls for the second time tonight. Then her voice softens.

“ _No para mí_.”

He looks at them. Well, he looks at Laura, and Lisa looks at him looking at Laura, and his face is— _different_. Softer, maybe. Or not.

“I know,” says Logan.

Laura squeezes her hand. Lisa squeezes back.

“ _Por_ _favor_.”

Now he looks at Lisa. She flinches, and has no idea why; all things considered it’s the nicest look Logan’s ever given her, not pissed or smirking or stony, just filled with the same maybe-softness he has for Laura.

“You want your _tiovivo_?”

“ _Si_ ,” says Laura.

“Yes,” says Lisa, because Laura said so, and because she _does_. She wants to fly.

Logan grumbles. “Give an old man a minute.” Then he hands Baxter’s leash back to Lisa and heads toward the carousel.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am 101% sure that this is not how carousels work.

“You can pick your own or jump up behind me. I don’t care.”

Laura considers for a minute, then launches herself at the horse’s painted rump. She growls when she starts to slide down; Logan boosts her up one handed.

“No claws,” he says. “Not okay. _Comprendes_?”

Laura’s arms circle Lisa’s waist and lock in. She squeezes until Lisa feels the mac and cheese start to flop around.

“It’s okay.” She links her hands through Laura’s, loosening her grip. “You’re not going to fall off.”

“ _Lo sé_.”

“It’s okay,” Lisa repeats. “I’ve got you.” She turns to Logan. “We’re ready.”

She’s not sure how he got the carousel started up, blazing and twinkling like something from a tourist website, or a fairy tale, but Lisa decides she’d rather not know. Well, she’s not a complete idiot; she knows that after he hauled himself over the gate and past the CLOSED signs he just pressed a button or pushed a lever. She’s just not going to ask. She wants to keep the magic.

Once, she and Laura were talking about Logan—they talk about their dads more than almost anything else, though neither of them will admit to it—and Laura said, “ _Es el major en lo que hace_.” _He’s the best at what he does_.

“Like what?” Lisa understood what Laura told her, more or less, by then. As long as she talked slowly. Frank called it immersion. Logan called it young brains.

( _Never had many to begin with. Now they’re all dried out and fucked up.)_

Laura shrugged. “ _Todo_ ,” she said, like it was no big deal. Right now, Lisa’s beginning to believe her.

Then the music starts, the bouncy organ notes trickling out into the dark, with no one but Lisa and Laura and Logan and Baxter to hear them, and then the horses are spinning, slowly, slowly, faster, faster. Lisa wobbles. She’d reach out to grab the pole but her fingers are still tangled with Laura’s.

Laura’s fingers are slick with sweat. Her breath huffs on the back of Lisa’s neck—not quite a laugh and not quite a scream, but something close to both.

“See?” Lisa shouts, her voice lost in the music. “It’s like flying.”

_It’s like magic._

Her cheeks ache and she realizes she’s smiling. No, _grinning_. Grinning so wide her lips pull tight like rubber bands, and the minute she feels that is the minute she realizes that she’s crying. Again. But the carousel keeps spinning, and the music keeps playing, and she doesn’t stop.

_Hey, it’s okay. Hey, hey. Lisa. Look at me._

She swears she hears his voice, swears she’ll look up and there he’ll be. One hand on her back, and that’s all she needs, because without it she’d go flying off the horse and into the gate, but as long as he’s there, right behind her, nothing bad will happen.

That’s what she used to think. But she’s thirteen now.

_I’m right here._

She’s not a kid anymore.

Lisa feels the pull in her gut when the carousel begins to slow, then finally twists to a stop. Back to earth. She still doesn’t stop crying. She can’t. Laura’s fingers finally unhook. She slides down. Lisa doesn’t.

“He had a hole in his head. I thought he was dead too.”

Laura’s face turns up to hers. She grabs Lisa’s ankle, stroking the strip of skin between her sock and too-short jeans with her thumb.

“It’s okay,” she says. “ _Se acabό_.”

“They took him away. I thought he was dead—they knew I thought he was dead—they never told me.” Snot trickles down her chin. Lisa smears it away with the back of her hand before it can drip on Laura. “ _They never told me_.”

The carousel lights flicker, then shut off, all at once. Like a curtain closing. Logan’s voice barks out from somewhere in the darkness.

“Time’s up.”

From outside (Lisa looped his leash around a gatepost before climbing over) Baxter barks, too.

Laura tugs at Lisa’s ankle. “ _Se acabό_ ,” she repeats. “It’s time to go home.”

If she’d been waiting by the bed that first time he woke up—well, maybe things would be different, and maybe they wouldn’t, but she can’t think about that now, not unless she wants to stay glued to her horse, grinning and crying like a lunatic. Lisa swings her leg over the saddle.

“ _Se acabό_ ,” she says. Her accent’s all kinds of screwed up, but Laura won’t care. “Let’s go home.”

+

“ _Gracias_.” Laura says, for the third time.

Lisa reaches into Logan’s pocket to grab the keys; he’s trying to fish for them and hand her Baxter’s leash at the same time and doing neither. “What she said.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Logan grumbles. He hates when they do things for him. Doesn’t say why, but Lisa knows it’s because they make him feel old. You know, as if he isn’t. “Mucho mucho.”

“ _Muchas_ ,” Laura corrects, her tone almost patient. “ _Muchas gracias_.”

Frank’s not back yet. None of them mention it. Instead, Logan unfolds the pull-out couch while Laura scoops Baxter a second helping (“Don’t come crying to me if he needs to take a shit in the middle of the night.”) and Lisa stacks the leftover dishes in the sink.

They’ll finish them tomorrow.

“He’ll be back tomorrow,” she whispers. She doesn’t believe it, but she also doesn’t believe he’s bleeding to death again.

Lisa shuts off the light and heads for the bathroom, past the hump on the couch. “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

The hump starts; he must have already been half-asleep. “You better be in bed before I turn around.”

He doesn’t have a blanket. Lisa grabs hers—she and Laura usually share, anyway—and, shuffling back in, dumps it, half-unfolded, over his legs.

The man started up the Central Park Carousel for her. She’s not going to let him freeze.

“ _Muchas gracias_ ,” Lisa says again. She turns to go, but his voice stops her.

“Hey, kid.”

“Yeah?”

“It was a pleasure.”

Lisa smiles. “Geez. Wonder when I’ll hear _that_ again.”

Logan pulls her blanket up to his neck, rolls over. “Smartass.”

+

It must be 1:00, or even later (earlier). They hear both Logan and Baxter’s snores rumbling down the hall but neither of them can sleep.

They didn’t start out sharing a mattress. The first few weeks both Logan and Laura got nightmares. Nothing special about that; Lisa’s used to waking up to screams—hers or Frank’s—but neither of them can stab a person in their sleep. Well, it’s not impossible, but they don’t exactly have the built in equipment for it.  Even after those nights, when Laura calmed down and the flailing and snarling and slashing sheets to ribbons (mostly) ended, Frank and Logan weren’t on board with it.

“They never really go away,” Logan snapped, pissed because neither of them would listen. “Believe me.”

Lisa can’t count how many times she’s been woken up by either Frank or Logan carrying Laura back to her own mattress. But that hasn’t happened since last Sunday; maybe they’ve finally given up. Logan’s right, though. Laura’s nightmares didn’t stop. They’ve just gotten quieter. And Lisa’s gotten better at handling them.

She hears Laura’s breath catch and reaches over, circling Laura’s wrist with her fingers and stroking across it with her thumb.

“How about that carousel, huh?”

It helps to ask questions they both already know the answers to.

Laura’s breath tickles her cheek. “Mucho, mucho.”

Lisa giggles. “I think he’s actually trying to learn this time.”

“ _Cómo no_.”

“The other day he asked me what birthday was in Spanish. I swear.”

She thinks of the locket, safe in its fuzzy black box. _Lisa & Laura: Partners in Crime_. She should have put it on after dinner. Oh, well. She’ll wear it tomorrow. Even if she spends the whole day washing blood out of Frank’s undershirts.

If he comes back. 

“Did Logan help you pick it out?” Lisa asks, just to distract herself, since even Laura can’t have snuck off to Macy’s on her own without anyone noticing.

Laura snorts. As if. “I picked out locket.”

“But he told them what to put on it?”

No answer.

Lisa pokes her in the side. “Laura!”

“Maybe.”

That clinches it. Laura always switches to English when she’s hiding something; it’s easier to lie in a language you only know half the words of, anyway. Lisa lies back, smiling.

“Hey, he said it. Not us.”

+

It’s 3:00. Laura drifted off for about fifteen minutes before waking up again. Lisa hasn’t even closed her eyes. She keeps remembering the carousel. Keeps remembering Frank’s hand on her back, and picnics in the park. Keeps remembering the gunshots.

She still hears them. Always will. But tonight they’re quieter than they’ve been in months. Almost quiet enough to ignore.

“Do you think you could ever go back to Transigen?”

They hardly ever talk—really talk—about the place where Laura grew up. She flinches, and Lisa feels dirty for even mentioning it. It’s not like they ever really talk about Central Park, either.

She doesn’t expect an answer. But Laura speaks up, slowly, careful to get each word right. “No. But you couldn’t go there with me.”

Lisa flops over to face her; Laura lies still, her eyes fixed on the ceiling. “You didn’t want to go back to the park. But I could come with you.”

She needed to go back.

Down the hall, Logan coughs in his sleep.

“Laura?”

_Where’s my dad?_

_Honey, he didn’t make it._

“What?” In that voice like broken glass.

“When you go back, I’m coming with you.”

+

She hears someone working on the locks at 5:00. Baxter groans, growls, and creaks to his feet, paws clicking on the cheapo linoleum floor. Lisa gets up to follow him, and Laura follows her.

“Jesus Christ,” is the first thing he says, blood dribbling down his chin and all. “Why ain’t you two in bed?”

“Why do you think?” Lisa feels her fingers curling into fists, hears her voice thinning to a screech.

Frank winces. “Told you not to stay up for me.”

“Fuck that. It’s been almost two days.”

His fists clench at his sides, just like hers. A mean, hot kind of satisfaction uncurls in her gut.

Frank hobbles over to the sink, Baxter clicking after him. He twists the faucet and bends over to drink straight from it, groaning as the water runs red.

“Did you cut your lip?” It’s out before she can stop herself.

He must have decided to play nice; after shutting off the faucet and straightening up Frank says, “Want to hear some dumb shit?”

“Always.”

“I bit my tongue.”

“Wow,” says Lisa after a minute. “That is some dumb shit.”

Frank’s lips twitch. Maybe hers do, too.

At least he doesn’t have any broken bones this time. But someone did cut him. It’s clean—a slice, not a gash—but it stretches from his eyebrow to his hairline. He’s been bleeding like a stuck pig for who knows how long.

“Are you dizzy? You need to sit down.”

Laura, who slipped out while he was taking a drink, slips back in carrying the first-aid kit.

“Your old man asleep?” Frank asks her as he straddles one of the flimsy kitchen chairs backwards.

Laura reaches out, tracing her finger along the edge of the cut. Frank doesn’t pull away.

“ _Duele_.”

He doesn’t answer.

Lisa distracts Baxter with another scoop of kibble, then washes her hands. She still isn’t used to using a curved needle, but she’s been getting better. Beggars can’t be choosers.

Frank watches as she threads it. “Steady hands.”

“I know.”

He can stitch up cuts on his arms, legs, and even his sides and stomach, by himself. And Logan can do most of the things he can’t. Splint broken fingers, pop a shoulder back into place. But Logan’s hands shake too much to hold a needle, and nobody’s gotten around to teaching Laura yet.

It’s the one thing he needs Lisa to do for him. You don’t flake out on a guy with a gushing head wound. Doesn’t matter how pissed you are.

Laura disinfects it with a towel dipped in water and rubbing alcohol. She talks while she works like Lisa told her to, like Mom used to whenever she picked gravel out of Lisa’s palms or sprayed Junior’s knees with Bactine. Say anything, as long as it’s distracting.

“She says you went to Central Park.”

Maybe not that distracting.

 _Don’t start shaking now_ , Lisa thinks, staring at her fingers. _Don’t look at him, either_. Whatever’s in his eyes right now, she’s not ready to face it.

Frank tilts his face up to the light while Lisa pinches the cut's edges shut. Neither one of them talks until she’s knotted and clipped off the first suture.

“Did you go to the carousel?” he asks.

 _Don’t_ _shake_. “It’s okay,” Lisa says. “I know you don’t want to talk about it.”

Frank hisses through his teeth. It’s not from the pain; her hands are steady. He’s pissed again.

“Do you?”

Lisa can’t avoid his eyes now. She looks down, and, yeah, he’s pissed. He’s also sad. Sad as he’d get after one too many beers with his war buddies. Sad as he was that time when Junior’s appendix burst and he had to go in for surgery. They let Mom go in once he was in recovery. Frank stayed in the waiting room with Lisa. He sent her off to the vending machines, and when she got back with chips and sodas her dad was bent over, face in his hands, shoulders shaking like no one could ever comfort him, like he’d never be happy again. It scared her to death then. Still does.

She knows Laura is watching her, knows what Laura wants her to say. She also knows that she’s not ready for it, neither is Frank, and she doesn’t think he ever will be.

Maybe, though. Maybe she’s ready to stop being bitter about that. He came back, didn’t he?

 _“Se acabό_ ,” Lisa says, and starts on another suture.

**Author's Note:**

> Spanish translations (according to the best of my knowledge and Google Translate):
> 
> _Abrelo_ : Open it  
>  _De nada_ : You're welcome  
>  _Cabron_ : Bastard; asshole  
>  _Vale_ : Okay  
>  _Gemelas_ : Twins  
>  _Tiovivo_ : Carousel, merry-go-round  
>  _No para mí_ : Not for me  
>  _Por favor_ : Please  
>  _Comprendes_ : Do you understand?  
>  _Lo sé_ : I know  
>  _Todo_ : Everything  
>  _Se acabό_ : It's over  
>  _Muchas gracias_ : Thank you very much  
>  _Cómo no_ : Sure  
>  _Duele_ : It hurts.  
>   
> Title semi-cribbed from a line in the song "I'm Not Your Hero" by Tegan and Sara.  
>   
> Also, [here's](https://mapleymood.tumblr.com/) where you can find me on tumblr.


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